


Ruin of the Realm

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Advisors, Documents, F/M, Gen, Government, Politics, Ruin of a Realm, hints of sexism, kingship, power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jessamine forces Roger to trouble himself with affairs of state.





	Ruin of the Realm

**Author's Note:**

> An amplification of my earlier one sentence work "Troubled with Affairs of State," but both are written so as to be understandable independently.

Ruin of the Realm

“Did you read through these?” Jessamine asked Roger, her brow knitting as she studied a pile of laws awaiting his seal and signature—which he, as always, would provide without glancing at the decrees—on his desk. 

“No.” Roger admired the way her dark hair shone in the flickering candlelight of the study and wished they were in bed together. She was even more radiant naked than she was in bright silk. “Don’t furrow your forehead like that, my dear. You’ll give yourself wrinkles that will ruin your beauty.” 

“I must furrow my forehead over the follies your advisors commit in your name.” Jessamine stared at him as if he made an impossible suggestion in an incomprehensible language. 

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself with affairs of state.” Roger was confounded by her interest in matters of governance that could only strain the delicate female mind and body. “Alysy never troubled herself with affairs of state.” 

Glaring at him in a manner that made Roger remember how she despised it when he compared her to his dead wife, Jessamine snapped, “I’m not so frail as Alysy, and I will trouble myself with affairs of state. Perhaps you should consider doing the same before your advisors ruin the realm.” 

“Is the realm facing ruin?” Roger gaped at her. He had always assumed that his name would be lost to history as that of an utterly unremarkable king with an irrelevant reign. The notion that his reign could be recalled for countless generations as one of misery and woe rattled him out of his indifference to politics. 

“Look at your papers.” Jessamine pushed away from his desk, chair scraping the floor. “You can read the ruin in them for yourself.”


End file.
